Chevrolet Volt

[crystalpalace]

This technology is clearly not ready for prime time. Methinks GM blunders again by going to the market with a clearly inadequate product. Don't they ever learn?

I'm sorry, how exactly is it that you know the technology is not ready for prime time? I'm sure a lot of people said the same thing about automobiles back in the days of horses and wagons.

Boeing made an electric rover for the moon over 40 years ago. It's about time we have mass production electric vehicles.

This is a brilliant move from GM. They have a lot of guts and I respect them for that.

 

[crystalpalace]

"This car looks great..."

You should have seen the prototypes! They looked even hotter!

 

[Tangwhich]

There will be a niche market for it for sure. Kind of like with the Prius... people were snapping them up to be "green" even though you can get better mileage from many compact gas powered cars, and the premium you pay on a hybrid takes years to balance out in terms of the gas you save.

I have some contacts in the auto industry that fairly senior management types and they say that it will be 5-10 years before there are viable affordable gas alternative vehicles on the road.

I'm not in love with gas prices or pollution, but there's a lot of hype surrounding environmentally friendly cars that I just don't buy into.

However, building the Volt may also give them access to government grants or bails outs for being environmentally friendly and building cars that will break our dependance on oil.

I think the primary reason people want these cars is not to be green, but to save some green (money).. I know that that's my primary motivation. Ultimately I'd like to get a small wind generator/solar panel combo and charge my car from that, mean it would cost me zippo (except on long trips when the gas engine would kick in).
Toyota once said that they would not make a plug in car, but they are now going to release one around the same time as the Volt comes out. I recently read that mazda have been developing a car similar to the Volt on the quiet.
Personally, I think the volt and cars like it are going to revolutionize automobiles as we know them today.

On the other hand, Honda has publically stated on a number of occasions they don't believe in this trend and are going to stick to regular hybrids. I hope and certainly believe they are wrong.

 

[Tangwhich]

For more pics, please refer to this page:

http://gm-volt.com/2008/09/16/breaking-production-chevy-volt-revealed-in-full/

 

[dajodo2]

I still want someone to tell me how these electric cars will be able to heat the cabin in the winter and cool it in the summer and still have some energy left for driving.

Oh well, kudos to General Motors for the effort they are putting into developing an electric car. At least it looks nice. The Malibu is a handsome car. Jap green cars are ugly.

The japs will just let GM pour all the R&D into such a product then pick up the ball and run with it from there.

Typical of the copy cat asian auto sector.

 

[Tangwhich]

I still want someone to tell me how these electric cars will be able to heat the cabin in the winter and cool it in the summer and still have some energy left for driving.

Oh well, kudos to General Motors for the effort they are putting into developing an electric car.

The japs will just let GM pour all the R&D into such a product then pick up the ball and run with it from there.

Typical of the copy cat asian auto sector.

The heating will just be an electric heater. That's what DIY EV builders have been doing for years. Perhaps they can also extract heat from the motor once it warms up too. It's been a while since I read the quote, but the AC issue was address by the main guy at GM. If I remember correctly it was a tricky one for them to deal with, but they have developed a low power AC unit for it. Obviously, it's going to have an effect on the range of the car (as it does in a gas car).. how much, remains to be seen.

 

[r_s426]

I think the primary reason people want these cars is not to be green, but to save some green (money).. I know that that's my primary motivation. Ultimately I'd like to get a small wind generator/solar panel combo and charge my car from that, mean it would cost me zippo (except on long trips when the gas engine would kick in).
Toyota once said that they would not make a plug in car, but they are now going to release one around the same time as the Volt comes out. I recently read that mazda have been developing a car similar to the Volt on the quiet.
Personally, I think the volt and cars like it are going to revolutionize automobiles as we know them today.

On the other hand, Honda has publically stated on a number of occasions they don't believe in this trend and are going to stick to regular hybrids. I hope and certainly believe they are wrong.

It's been a while since I looked at the stats, but it used to be that the premium you paid to buy a hybrid took several years to pay itself off in terms of savings at the pump. Obviously, the gap gets shorter as gas prices go up.

I've also read that you can get worse mileage out of a hybrid versus a gas powered alternative depending on how aggressively you drive.

The $green$ savings won't come until production costs go down.

As for the Volt, I have no idea what the MSRP will be. You'd be dropping a few grand for a decent solar or wind set up though.... I have a $1500 solar panel on my travel trailer and it takes a good 8 hours of full sun to charge the two car batteries that power it.

I'm just saying once you factor all of those costs in, you may not be getting the $green$ savings you want for a few years. Here's hoping you do though.... I'd love to give a big middle finger to the gas companies.

 

[keyser]

Zenn

I'm more interested to see what ZENN can do with their next generation car using the EEstor ultracapacitor. This will have a range of hundreds of kilometers at highway speeds, recharge in a few minutes rather than a few hours (from a recharging station you would need to buy, it wouldn't be a regular 110V AC line) and the capacitors will never wear out like batteries do. And the capacitors will weigh a small fraction of batteries. The only question is, will EEstor really be able to commercialize the capacitor? Supposedly, later this year they will. We'll see...

 

[Tangwhich]

It's been a while since I looked at the stats, but it used to be that the premium you paid to buy a hybrid took several years to pay itself off in terms of savings at the pump. Obviously, the gap gets shorter as gas prices go up.

I've also read that you can get worse mileage out of a hybrid versus a gas powered alternative depending on how aggressively you drive.

The $green$ savings won't come until production costs go down.

As for the Volt, I have no idea what the MSRP will be. You'd be dropping a few grand for a decent solar or wind set up though.... I have a $1500 solar panel on my travel trailer and it takes a good 8 hours of full sun to charge the two car batteries that power it.

I'm just saying once you factor all of those costs in, you may not be getting the $green$ savings you want for a few years. Here's hoping you do though.... I'd love to give a big middle finger to the gas companies.

I dont' think a lot of people really understand that a hybrid isn't that much more efficient when you do lots of hwy driving. City driving is where it pays off.
There's no question that careful driving can have a major impact on gas (energy) consumption. I normally get a little over 600km for 50 litres on my car. This summer I did a trip long trip and got about 920km on that same 50 litres just by driving steady at 100km/h

Latest estimate on the cost of the volt will be about $40k. There's all sorts of factors that will determine just how cost effective it will be for each person. For me personally, I am confident that I will be able to use it for my work commute with zero gas consumption.

There's also the freedom aspect of it. I hate the gas companies and I really fucking hate enbridge when they charge me $50 when my actually hydro usage is about $17. The solar panel/wind turbine plan is definitely my way of telling them to fuck of. I'll lose money on it, I know that.. but it will bring me a great deal of pleasure..

 

[Tangwhich]

I'm more interested to see what ZENN can do with their next generation car using the EEstor ultracapacitor. This will have a range of hundreds of kilometers at highway speeds, recharge in a few minutes rather than a few hours (from a recharging station you would need to buy, it wouldn't be a regular 110V AC line) and the capacitors will never wear out like batteries do. And the capacitors will weigh a small fraction of batteries. The only question is, will EEstor really be able to commercialize the capacitor? Supposedly, later this year they will. We'll see...

While I know about these capacitors, I admit I know very little about them. I hope they can do what is claimed. The future is bright for electric cars. Just look at the advances in battery technology brought on my things like cell phones and ipods. Now with cars entering the arena we're going to see a lot of research into this and we will no doubt see more progress in batteries in the next decade than in the previous century.

 

[crystalpalace]

I still want someone to tell me how these electric cars will be able to heat the cabin in the winter and cool it in the summer and still have some energy left for driving.

Oh well, kudos to General Motors for the effort they are putting into developing an electric car. At least it looks nice. The Malibu is a handsome car. Jap green cars are ugly.

The japs will just let GM pour all the R&D into such a product then pick up the ball and run with it from there.

Typical of the copy cat asian auto sector.

The second part of your comment is not entirely true. Honda with their IMA inside the Insight model were the pioneer with the hybrid drive train way back in 1999. In fact, GM didn't develop one until just a couple of years back and even those are not true hybrids, just regular cars with stronger starters and batteries to shut off and start the car at lights.

Toyota's Hybrid Synergy Drive is also very unique to them and does not involve any "copay cat" technology, at least not from GM for that matter.

Even the EV1 was not entirely a GM product. It was based on another small company's concept car done in cooperation with GM.

Volt is the first true in house dip in to the all electric vehicles for GM.

Still, it takes a lot of guts for a car manufacturer in the US to put something like this out there.

 

[WoodPeckr]

I still want someone to tell me how these electric cars will be able to heat the cabin in the winter and cool it in the summer and still have some energy left for driving.

Probably the same way the Toyota Prius does.
HVAC is not rocket science.

 

[papasmerf]

let me see you can drive 40 miles on a single charge..........well that is a saving if the batteries are free.

 

[landscaper]

I'm more interested to see what ZENN can do with their next generation car using the EEstor ultracapacitor. This will have a range of hundreds of kilometers at highway speeds, recharge in a few minutes rather than a few hours (from a recharging station you would need to buy, it wouldn't be a regular 110V AC line) and the capacitors will never wear out like batteries do. And the capacitors will weigh a small fraction of batteries. The only question is, will EEstor really be able to commercialize the capacitor? Supposedly, later this year they will. We'll see...

capacitors are in fasct subject to failure, and they can explode in certain conditions the size of the explosion depends on the size and charge of teh capacitor.

Capacitors are probably the way of the future fore electricity storage but they have a way to go yet.

 

[Esco!]

If electric cars catch on I wonder if suddenly the price of gasoline will come down

 

[WoodPeckr]

If electric cars catch on I wonder if suddenly the price of gasoline will come down

Of course it will.
This happens when a crooked monopoly gets broken up!...

 

[Diode]

capacitors are in fasct subject to failure, and they can explode in certain conditions the size of the explosion depends on the size and charge of teh capacitor.

Capacitors are probably the way of the future fore electricity storage but they have a way to go yet.

They can explode, leak, open and short
Constant charge/discharge cycles on both Batteries and Capacitors are what lead to failures.
Advantage to caps in weight, however.

 

[shakenbake]

Love the way these guys market this car, the range is 65 km more then enough to go to work and back and pick up the kids he says.

Not sure what town he lives in but probably not Toronto

http://www.torontosun.com/news/2008/09/18/6804846.html

hey Esco;

Give them a chance to work on the driving range. At least, they are working on a concept that has promise for the future, and not on a dinasouar like most of their present offerings.

 

[shakenbake]

capacitors are in fasct subject to failure, and they can explode in certain conditions the size of the explosion depends on the size and charge of teh capacitor.

Capacitors are probably the way of the future fore electricity storage but they have a way to go yet.

Why not hybrid vehicles that use fuel cell stacks and ultracaps? That is what they have in many, if not most of the fuel cell vehicles.

As far as ultracaps goes, you are correct, they can be prone to catastrophic failure. However, they have come a long way and are making great progress. It also depends on how the ultracaps are integrated into the vehicular application. This is beyond the control of the ultracap manufacturer.

Here is a link to Maxwell Technologies news releases.

http://www.maxwell.com/news-events/in-the-news.asp

Enjoy........

Or, maybe not......

 

[Esco!]

hey Esco;

Give them a chance to work on the driving range. At least, they are working on a concept that has promise for the future, and not on a dinasouar like most of their present offerings.

I agree

When they finally work out all the bugs in 10 years or so I may even buy one.
My reasons are the same what others stated, I enjoy pissing off OPEC and oil CEO's around the world